Abstract
High thyroid doses due to Iodine-131 (131I) intake among individuals exposed in childhood and adolescence to Chernobyl fallout raise questions about their reliability and their impact on the analysis of the radiation-related risk of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases in the exposed population. In the present study, an in-depth examination was conducted of thyroid doses from 131I intake over 5Gy calculated for 131 subjects of the Belarusian-American cohort of individuals exposed after the Chernobyl accident. Thyroid doses in this cohort study were estimated based on individual radiation measurements of 131I thyroidal activity and detailed questionnaire data on individual behavior and consumptions of locally produced foodstuffs. Therefore, these doses provide the best basis for assessing reliability. The analysis showed that the result of direct thyroid measurement was mistakenly assigned to three out of 131 study subjects (2.3% of the total), and, therefore, the instrumental thyroid dose for these individuals cannot be correctly estimated. This study confirmed with a high degree of confidence the reliability of thyroid doses due to 131I intake exceeding 5Gy that were calculated for the Belarusian-American cohort members.
Highlights
Almost 35 years have passed since the Chernobyl accident occurred on 26 April 1986, which is still the most severe in the history of the nuclear reactor industry
The dose estimates were based on the following data available for all 11,732 cohort members: (1) measurements of the exposure rate against the subjects’ necks, which were performed within two months after the accident and allowed to estimate the 131I thyroidal activity for the measured person; and (2) responses to personal interviews of the study subjects or their relatives on residential history after the accident and dietary habits (Drozdovitch et al 2013)
Since consumption of milk and dairy products was the main source of 131I intake for most of the study subjects, the ecological 131I activity
Summary
Almost 35 years have passed since the Chernobyl accident occurred on 26 April 1986, which is still the most severe in the history of the nuclear reactor industry. The dose estimates were based on the following data available for all 11,732 cohort members: (1) measurements of the exposure rate against the subjects’ necks, which were performed within two months after the accident and allowed to estimate the 131I thyroidal activity for the measured person; and (2) responses to personal interviews of the study subjects or their relatives on residential history after the accident and dietary habits (Drozdovitch et al 2013). This paper considers 131 out of 11,732 Belarusian-American cohort members with thyroid doses due to 131I intake above 5 Gy, including 34 with doses higher than 10 Gy. To check the reliability of high doses, this paper examined the input data used for dose reconstruction as well
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